When you hire a vehicle from a car rental company, you won’t be told whether it takes diesel or petrol. However, you need to find out when filling the tank since putting diesel into a petrol vehicle or the other way around can cause serious damage to the engine. It’s the last thing every traveler would wish to experience because it will lead to paying a huge amount of compensation money since it isn’t covered by the rental agreement. Is there any simple method to distinguish between diesel and petrol vehicles? Yes! There are different ways to tell and some of them require simply looking into the right place.
You can easily distinguish between diesel and petrol vehicles by following the techniques below. Try no less than two or three of them to be sure.
Find the Clue in the Model Name
It’s the easiest way to identify between diesel and petrol vehicles. The vehicles with diesel engines always have the letter ‘D’ in the model name. For instance, Lexus IS 220d, BMW 730d, BMW 745d. Here the ‘D’, shows that these vehicles have a diesel engine.
The back of your car is always a rebel showing the model name on it. In case it has the letter ‘D’, it means it’s a diesel-powered engine.
The Unpleasant Sound
The diesel engine vehicles produce a particular tractor-like sound contrasted with the smoother noise of their petrol counterparts. The sound seems like a rattling noise at idle that ends up raspier with driving. In any case, the computerized diesel engines nowadays don’t make such a sound. You can apply this method to identify old car models.
Check the Engine
The way the engine was designed can also give clues about the type of fuel the vehicle uses. Vehicles that use diesel don’t have spark plugs and some older car models don’t have the mass air flow sensor or the throttle body.
Look inside the Fuel Cap Label
The inside of the fuel door should have a name reading ‘Gasoline Only’, ‘Diesel Fuel Only’, or something that shows the kind of fuel the vehicle uses. In case there is nothing, you can check the fuel filler neck, the vehicle key, and the instrument bundle close to the fuel gauge. The renting agency always puts stickers on one of these spots showing the fuel type used in the car.
Narrow Fuel Pump
In case checking out the vehicle and into the engine fails, the fuel pump could be your savior. Modern computerized petrol vehicles have a narrow opening contrasted with the thicker, wider diameter of the diesel pump spouts. Try not to fill the tank in case you need to force the spout into the fuel neck.
In any case, it’s still easy to put petrol in a diesel vehicle because the small petrol pump spout will slide into the diesel vehicle’s fuel filler neck. To avoid such an accident, you ought to be careful whether the spout nicely fits into the filler neck. Try not to fill up if the spout feels too tight or too loose.